The US unemployment rate fell 0.1 point and fell again to 3.5% in July. It thus returns to the same level as in February 2020, when it was at its lowest level in 50 years, the Department of Labor announced this Friday. In total, 528,000 jobs were created during this period, twice as many as expected.
“Job growth was widespread, led by job creation in the leisure and hospitality, professional and business services, and health care sectors,” the Labor Department said in a statement.
Job creation in May and June was higher than estimated, 386,000 and 398,000 respectively, that is, a total of 28,000 more jobs created than initially announced. Currently, the health of the labor market is being closely scrutinized in the United States, because its deterioration goes hand in hand with the fight against inflation. But it could also signal the approach of a recession.
The US economy “in transition”?
In fact, the US economy has contracted in the last two quarters. However, many economists, as well as the Biden administration, assure that it is not in a recession. In particular, they highlight the strength of employment, as US employers have faced a shortage of workers for months.
White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre tried to set the stage Thursday for weaker job creation than before. She had indicated, during her daily press conference, that the US economy is “in transition” towards less strong but more stable growth.
“And during this transition,” he stressed, we should no longer expect the “record of jobs that we have experienced each month, of about 500,000 or 600,000 jobs, (…), we hope to be closer to 150,000 (creations) of jobs per month. It is even, according to her, “a sign of the success of this transition.”
mass resignations
However, the first signs of a slowdown had been seen this week. The number of vacancies thus fell in June, and had fallen below 11 million for the first time in seven months, according to Bureau of Statistics (BLS) data released on Tuesday. But the resignations had continued to be massive.
As for weekly jobless claims, which give an indication of the level of layoffs, they began to rise again in late July, with the four-week average even reaching its highest level since November.
Jobless claims hit a record low in March as employers hesitated to lay off workers as they struggled to hire due to severe labor shortages.
In all, 1.4 million people received unemployment benefits in the United States in mid-July, up from nearly 13 million last year around the same time.
Source: BFM TV
